Monday, February 28, 2011

In the news story summarized below, a woman whose rape lie caused two innocent men to be arrested is regarded by the female judge who sentenced her as almost the victim herself. The judge's remarks are among the most troubling we have reported on this site, and that is saying a lot. They point up a serious problem that the falsely accused face -- when the criminal is deemed the victim, it is no wonder so little concern is shown for the falsely accused.

The judge said that the rape lie -- told to cover up the rape liar's impregnation by a man who wasn't her husband -- was "a very human story and in a way understandable."

Read that again, and let it sink in.

The judge noted that the lie was told "under pressure" from the liar's husband. And that, of course, is a peculiar way of wording it because it suggests the criminal is not fully culpable for her malefactions. She's not a morally free agent, but was "forced" into a criminal act -- by a man, of course. The judge's comments evince a sympathy and a tolerance for one of the foulest crimes that can victimize a male. This particular rape lie resulted in the arrest of not one but two innocent human beings.

The judge is also making certain that this pregnant woman doesn't give birth in jail. (Can someone cite for me a precedent where a male's sentence was reduced because he was about to be a father?)

To suggest that such a lie is in any sense "understandable" is no more appropriate than to suggest that a rape is, in some other-worldly sense, "understandable." Moreover, it is more accurate to characterize this wicked fabrication as "inhumane" than "human" as surely the liar knew that once a rape lie is unleashed, there is no controlling it.

To treat the woman's horrid prevarication as a natural human act deserving of sympathy trivializes the vileness of false rape claims, and their horrible effects on their victims. It is, however, typical of the judicial reaction to this crime.

Here is the news story:

Jailed: The soldier's cheating wife who claimed she was raped to cover up pregnancy while husband was in Afghanistan

Samantha Morley cheated on her soldier husband, Thomas Morley, then falsely claimed she had been raped to cover up the fact she had become pregnant in an affair with another man while her husband was fighting in Afghanistan.

Mr. Morley became suspicious over the parentage of his youngest child because her date of birth meant she was likely to conceived while he was deployed in war-torn Helmand Province. He quizzed his wife, and she told him she had been raped during a drunken night out. The worried husband called police to report the crime.

As a result, two innocent men were arrested. Moreover, police estimated more than 54 hours were spent investigating the rape claims.

The second man arrested was the one with whom Ms. Morley had the affair.When Mrs Morley was arrested in July last year she initially maintained her allegation was truthful, but as the police interview progressed she realised how much officers already knew. She made the rape accusation, not expecting that her husband would contact the police.

Sophie Murray, defending, said that Mrs Morley had become entangled in a web of lies after trying to cover up her affair because she was afraid of losing her husband so soon after giving birth to her now nine-month-old baby daughter.

"This offence was committed not out of maliciousness, but due to a set of circumstances she found herself in by her own actions," she said.

"She did not make the call to the police, but once the wheels were in motion she felt she was unable to extract herself from the situation and she felt she had to go through with the charade to keep her family together."

The mother-of-three was jailed for 12 months for perverting the course of justice.

However, Judge Mary Jane Mowat said she would only serve six months and would not have to give birth to her new baby behind bars. The judge said: "After some questioning you came around to admitting that you had made a false allegation of rape under pressure because of the early birth of your child.

"It is a very human story and in a way understandable, but the result for the two men arrested and suspected of one of the worst crimes in our law was undeniable.

"The effect that false allegations have on the plight of genuine victims of rape has to be considered.

'The more the public hears about false allegations the less likely they, and juries, are to believe the true ones."

Brunette Mrs Morley wept loudly as her sentence was read out and began to hyperventilate as she was led from the dock to police cells.

Relatively few women come forward to report their rapes, we are told, even though members of what can aptly be called the sexual grievance industry insist that rape is rampant. They tell us that our college campuses are cisterns of male sexual predatory activity even though the numbers say it isn't so.

How could rape be rampant if hardly anyone is reporting it? Underreporting of Biblical proportions, of course. To solve the supposed underreporting problem, rape counselors and feminist legal scholars continually push for more and more funding for anti-rape campaigns and for more and more legal reforms in order to encourage rape victims to "come forward." None of these efforts have ever worked.

Many feminist scholars seriously suggest that the burden of proving consent be shifted to the male. This proposal, the Holy Grail of feminist rape reforms, is necessary, they insist, to do justice for all the multitudes of rape victims who simply aren't "coming forward" because the legal system is so terribly biased against women.

The reality, of course, is that rape -- although too common (one rape is one rape too many) -- is not rampant in our culture, or on our college campuses. The one-in-four stat, in all its various dishonest manifestations, has been debunked time and time and time again. Among others, Christina Hoff Sommers and Heather MacDonald have debunked it.

For my money, a writer on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Web site has driven the final nail in the one-in-four coffin because he uses their own (inflated) 90 percent underreporting figure to prove, beyond any question, that the one-in-four stat is a lie : One-in-One-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-Seventy-Seven

Go read it. Go cut it out and paste it to your refrigerators. Go send it to your sister's friends.

Arkansas Tech’s Office of Public Safety issued a statement Monday stating the department had closed an investigation into the alleged assault of a student last week.

“The individual who reported the incident met with Arkansas Tech University Public Safety Officers over the weekend and admitted to filing a false report,” Gary Biller, vice president for student services, said in the statement. “The individual will face university disciplinary charges as well as criminal charges of filing a false police report.”

An incident report filed with Tech’s Office of Public Safety last week by an unidentified student alleged he had been raped Feb. 16 at Critz Hall.

The student told a Public Safety officer he was off campus smoking and saw a male who he had previously met through a mutual friend. The suspect asked if the student had a cigarette lighter, to which the student said he had an extra lighter in his dorm room the suspect could have, according to the report.

The student said while he was searching for a lighter, the suspect approached, restrained and sexually assaulted him.

The student was later transported to Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center for a sexual assault examination, according to a police report.

A TEENAGE girl re­turned to the school she was expelled from with a carving knife to pursue a vendetta against a teacher she accused of sexually assaulting her.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was discovered with the eight-inch weapon concealed in her bag by a school police officer, after sneaking into the building and asking for the teacher by name in December last year.

She was on bail at the time for allegedly making false claims against the teacher. The teenager had told police he had sexually assaulted her twice a week in his room over a period of six months between January and June last year.

The girl, now 16, wept as she was convicted of perverting the course of justice and possessing an offensive weapon following a two-day trial which finished at Highbury Corner Youth Court yesterday (Wednesday).

District Judge James Henderson said she had “lied” and “fabricated” evidence to “get at” the teacher.

He said her explanation of returning to the north London school, which also cannot be identified, to visit two girls she thought could help prove the teacher was a sexual predator was “completely unbelievable”.

She faces a custodial sentence following the case, described as one of “the most unusual” to go before a youth court.

The court heard how she had made allegations to police about the teacher “touching her breasts” hours after being arrested when a brick was discovered in her bag in June last year. Teaching staff had become increasingly concerned about her behaviour, constant truancy and appearance.

She originally told officers the brick was a “good luck charm” but later claimed she needed it to “defend” herself from the teacher’s advances.

She was expelled following the incident and transferred under a “managed move” to another school in north London.

Following a police investigation by Holborn’s child abuse investigation, in which she said the teacher threatened her with expulsion if she told anybody, she was charged with perverting the course of justice for making false allegations.

The court heard that she had a panic attack and was taken to hospital in an ambulance halfway through a police interview in July and that police were “worried” by inconsistencies in the dates on which the girl said the assaults took place. She later said she had “exaggerated” the claims and was arrested at her new school at the end of July.

The court heard evidence that on many of the dates the teacher was either ill, at meetings or on holiday, and therefore could not have come into contact with the pupil.

He denied all the allegations in court and told how his life had been ruined by the claims.

Prosecutors said the girl had a “fixation with knives” and “lied” when things didn’t go her way.

The court heard evidence from the teacher that the girl was trying to “dismantle his life”.

He said that he had raised concerns with the school social worker about her repeated ab­sences and her “strained relationships” with other pupils.

The court heard how she turned up at the school gates on the morning of December 6 while on bail. She swore at the school police officer, before following another pupil through the gates.

She then asked for the teacher by name, while the officer raised the alarm with staff about her presence on school grounds. He told the court: “I was alarmed. I thought she intended to injure him.”

She was searched and found with the knife in her school bag, under some exercise books.

Speaking about the incident the teacher said: “I still look over my shoulder when I walk down the corridor.

“I started thinking, ‘what would I do if she came with a weapon?’”

The girl maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings.

Defending, Bob Dwek said: “It would have been very easy for her [his client] before today to come to court to say I don’t want to go through all of this, I’m going to plead guilty. But she said, ‘no, I am going to swear that X sexually assaulted me’. She sticks by that.”

Judge Henderson said the girl’s evidence was riddled with “inconsistencies” and her story changed “too often”. He went on to say her explanation of why she returned to school in December was “completely unbelievable”.

A TEENAGE girl re­turned to the school she was expelled from with a carving knife to pursue a vendetta against a teacher she accused of sexually assaulting her.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was discovered with the eight-inch weapon concealed in her bag by a school police officer, after sneaking into the building and asking for the teacher by name in December last year.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Feminists in Manitoba are staging a gender passion play well in advance of Holy Week in protest of an earnest judge's lenient sentence of a rapist. "Victim blaming!" "Sexist!" "Misogyny!" they shout, as they trip over one another to see who can bray their righteous indignation the loudest -- simply because the judge has the radical belief that “not all guilty people are morally culpable to the same level."The judge, Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Dewar, found that, in an alcohol-fueled encounter, Kenneth Rhodes "misunderstood signals" from the accuser to mean that she wanted sex, so he proceeded to have intercourse, as it turned out, against her will. The judge called him a “clumsy Don Juan” and convicted him of rape. Then, the judge sentenced him to a two-year conditional sentence. The Crown wanted him to serve at least three years behind bars, and the feminist community no doubt wanted lots and lots more than that, and possibly the forcible removal of a matching set of body parts.

The feminists' screeching overreaction to this sentence underscores in vivid, startling terms how completely divorced from common sense they've become when it comes to the subject of rape.

Men and women do not exchange written consent forms before proceeding with intercourse. A woman's secret, undisclosed intentions, whims, and desires have no bearing on the question of whether there was consent. The only thing that matters is her outward manifestations of assent, which may be expressed in an infinite variety of ways, both verbally and non-verbally, and as shown by all the surrounding circumstances.

Most lawyers are acutely aware of how oral and written communications often are subject to differing interpretations. Legion are the lawsuits to determine whether a legally operative contract was formed from a given set of such communications. When it comes to sex, where communications are typically far less articulate, it is amazing that the parties are typically "on the same page." Unfortunately, sometimes, they are not, and this is one of those unfortunate cases.

Mr. Rhodes counsel, Derek Coggan, told the court that it’s clear alcohol was a factor for both his client and the accuser in terms of their ability to make good judgments. He said Rhodes never threatened the woman, didn’t have a weapon and was simply “insensitive to the fact (she) was not a willing participant.”

In handing down the sentence, the judge found that Mr. Rhodes subjectively misinterpreted the accuser's outward manifestations and the surrounding circumstances to mean that she consented to intercourse. The judge seems to have believed that although Mr. Rhodes' interpretation was unreasonable (hence the rape conviction), it was nevertheless sincere and not malicious.

Let us get one thing straight: I am not a Canadian lawyer, but there is a "reasonableness" component to Canada's rape laws when it comes to consent. According to section 273.2(b) of Canada's Crimina Code, the accused must show that he took reasonable steps in order to ascertain the complainant's consent. Apparently, Mr. Rhodes did not act reasonably when he had sex with the woman. It was rape. So why did the judge hand down a lenient sentence? Because the judge determined that Mr. Rhodes stupidly interpreted the woman's behavior to invite sex. The judge did not condone such misinterpretation; he simply handed down a sentence based on the evidence that was presented to him.

In handing down the sentence, the judge examined the surrounding circumstances. Mr. Rhodes and a friend met the 26-year-old woman and her girlfriend earlier that night outside of a bar under what the judge called “inviting circumstances.” The accuser proceeded to engage in flirtatious behavior with Mr. Rhodes. The accuser and her friend made their intentions publicly known "that they wanted to party.” The judge noted the women spoke of going swimming in a nearby lake that night “notwithstanding the fact neither of them had a bathing suit.” The foursome left the parking lot in a vehicle, headed into the woods where Mr. Rhodes began making sexual advances toward the accuser, who initially rejected him but later returned his kisses. All in all, the accuser gave out signs that “sex was in the air.”

In his most controversial observation, the judge had the audacity to note what the accuser was wearing -- tube tops with no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup. The feminists are having a conniption over that observation, characterizing it as "victim blaming" -- as if her attire somehow is not and cannot be part of all the surrounding circumstances, and as if the judge based his sentencing decision solely on it. To these feminists, presumably the only evidence probative of consent would be the accuser's verbal and enthusiastic "yes!" even though that's not the law anywhere. If the woman was wearing a nun's habit, I am quite certain the prosecution would have made much of that, and properly so, even though it is possible that women dressed in nuns' habits are capable of consenting to sex.

But, of course, the judge didn't focus solely on the woman's attire even though that's how the sentencing decision is being spun by some fuming feminists. It was but one piece in the puzzle the judge was presented with. He merely sized up the entire encounter as best he could, including the accuser's "perceived invitation" and her flirtatiousness, and concluded it was "a case of misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behaviour.” The judge said: “I’m sure whatever signals were sent that sex was in the air were unintentional.”

The feminists insist the judge acted improperly in coming to this conclusion. They would, apparently, lump Mr. Rhode's conviction in the same category as the conviction of the guy who gets a woman stupor-drunk to the point that she can't make a rational decision with the goal of raping the excrement out of her. The refusal to make a distinction between those two convictions is, of course, morally appalling.

The attacks on the judge in this case are breathtaking in their disregard of reason. For example, the charge of "victim blaming," aside from being a tired cliche, is puerile in this case. The same judge being criticized for "victim blaming" actually convicted the man of rape. In passing sentence, the judge did nothing more than assess whether the man has a black heart, similar to the monster who slips a date rape drug in a woman's drink before having his way with her. The judge employed something the banshees attacking him seem wholly incapable of employing: nuance and mercy.

Moreover, the assertion that "no woman asks to be raped" is, of course, correct. If she asked to be raped, it would be consensual sex, not rape. The invocation of this vapid mantra does not advance serious discourse; it merely paints the speaker as an idiot.

The feminists unwittingly have done something else here. By putting pressure on the judge in this case, and by sending a signal to all jurists that men and boys convicted of rape are to be dealt with as harshly as possible regardless of the circumstances, the feminists are only insuring that fewer men and boys will be convicted of rape. These cases are already difficult enough without insisting that it's "all or nothing" -- in close cases, if the judge's options are limited to sending the man to heaven or to hell with no chance to send him to purgatory instead, the judge will choose heaven.

It is well to note that prominent feminists who are members of what can aptly be called the sexual grievance industry insist that false rape accusers should never be subjected to custodial sentences -- see here and here -- regardless of the harm they cause an innocent man or boy. But when it comes to rape, they insist that every incident is sufficiently malevolent to warrant an extended custodial sentence. To them, Mr. Rhodes' conviction is no different than the conviction of a brutal stranger rapist or the conviction of the date rape drug aficionado or the conviction for the "rape" committed by the boy who delayed withdrawing for five seconds after his "victim" told him to stop.

To these angry women, retributive justice means that the punishment need not fit the crime, so long as the criminal has a penis and the crime is rape. By any measure, that is a jurisprudence bordering on pathology.

Feminists in Manitoba are staging a gender passion play well in advance of Holy Week in protest of an earnest judge's lenient sentence of a rapist. "Victim blaming!" "Sexist!" "Misogyny!" they shout, as they trip over one another to see who can bray their righteous indignation the loudest -- simply because the judge has the radical belief that “not all guilty people are morally culpable to the same level."

A 32-year-old mother-of-three was jailed for 18 months today for falsely claiming she had been abducted and raped after she actually had "extensive" consensual sex with a 26-year-old man. The rape lie caused the man to be subjected to a humiliating arrest and a 12-hour custodial detention.

On the evening of July 5 last year, Nicola Osborn, who had been drinking, was walking home when she began talking to a stranger in the street. She did what all self-respecting mothers of three who've been drinking would do: she went home with him and engaged in "extensive sexual activity." When they were finished, they swapped telephone numbers and she left.

On her way home, she became upset when the potential consequences on her marriage from the illicit rendezvous suddenly dawned upon her. She was so visibly upset that passers-by contacted police. That's when she made up the rape lie -- she claimed she had been bundled in a car by a stranger and taken to a public toilet where she was forcibly raped.

Perhaps her intent was to keep the "rapist" a mystery. But, alas, once unleashed, a rape lie takes on a life of its own. A major police investigation was launched which utilized a total 548 hours of police man-hours. The police put other investigations on the back-burner as their resources were diverted to this alleged rape case.

A 26-year-old man was arrested after DNA samples taken from Osborne matched those taken from him for a previous minor criminal offence. (The DNA database can be used not only to catch rapists but to punish innocent men.) The man was arrested and detained for 12 hours.

The man's victim impact statement, which was read to the court, said: "I remember sitting in the cell and the door slamming shut. It's a horrible feeling, you feel like you are the only person in the world, I felt very frustrated as I knew I had done nothing wrong. I found it very humiliating. People like her make a mockery of women who have really been raped."

In sentencing Osborne, the judge said this: "I believe it suddenly hit you what the potential consequences were as to what you were going to be able to tell your husband about what you had been doing and a possible fear of pregnancy." He added that a custodial sentence reflected the seriousness of the offence which led to a "vast deployment of police manpower" and caused "intense anxiety" for the victim.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

There was an organized group of women in World War I whose mission it was to shame young men who were not in the army to enlist."In August 1914, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather. With the support of leading writers such as Mary Ward and Emma Orczy, the organisation encouraged women to give out white feathers to young men who had not joined the British Army. One young woman remembers her father, Robert Smith, being given a feather on his way home from work: 'That night he came home and cried his heart out. My father was no coward, but had been reluctant to leave his family. He was thirty-four and my mother, who had two young children, had been suffering from a serious illness. Soon after this incident my father joined the army.'" http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWfeather.htm

"After reading, in quick succession, four books about the men who fought the war, I took out a box of flimsy, yellowing letters, and tried yet again to imagine what my grandfather went through.

"He had three small daughters, which saved him from conscription, and his attempt to volunteer was turned down in 1914 because he was short-sighted. But in 1916, as he walked home to south London from his office, a woman gave him a white feather (an emblem of cowardice). He enlisted the next day. By that time, they cared nothing for short sight. They just wanted a body to stop a shell, which Rifleman James Cutmore duly did in February 1918, dying of his wounds on March 28.

"My mother was nine, and never got over it. In her last years, in the 1980s, her once fine brain so crippled by dementia that she could not remember the names of her children, she could still remember his dreadful, useless death. She could still talk of his last leave, when he was so shellshocked he could hardly speak and my grandmother ironed his uniform every day in the vain hope of killing the lice. She treasured his letters from the front, as well as information about his brothers who also died.

"She blamed the politicians. She blamed the generation that sent him to war. . . . .

"But most of all, she blamed that unknown woman who gave him a white feather, and the thousands of brittle, self-righteous women all over the country who had done the same. And there were thousands of them, as Will Ellsworth-Jones makes clear in his fascinating account of a group of conscientious objectors, We Will Not Fight. After the war, Virginia Woolf suggested there were only 50 or 60 white feathers handed out, but this was nonsense - as Ellsworth-Jones's diligent research shows.

"Some of his stories still have the power to make the reader angry. A 15-year-old boy lied about his age to get into the army in 1914. He was in the retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Marne and the first Battle of Ypres, before he caught a fever and was sent home. Walking across Putney Bridge, four girls gave him white feathers. 'I explained to them that I had been in the army and been discharged, and I was still only 16. Several people had collected around the girls and there was giggling, and I felt most uncomfortable and ... very humiliated.' He walked straight into the nearest recruiting office and rejoined the army."

COUNTY - A Baker Settlement woman who falsely accused her husband of physical and sexual assault will have to wait until early April to find out what the court will do with her.

Gail Elaine Conrad pleaded guilty to a charge of misleading police by making a false statement when she appeared in Bridgewater provincial court February 9. Although Ms Conrad indicated she was anxious to proceed, Judge Gregory Lenehan agreed with the Crown that a pre-sentence report should be prepared.

"This is a very serious matter, Ms Conrad, any time somebody makes a false accusation against somebody," Judge Lenehan said.

"I would also like to have some more information," he added. "It is essential for myself to have some background information on you. This type of allegation has significant ramifications on the justice system, so I need to try to get a feel for who you are and why this happened."

Crown attorney Susan Bour told the court Ms Conrad made a statement to an RCMP constable on September 13 of last year, recalling times when her husband pushed and hit her, and times he had intercourse with her without her permission.

Police arrested Mr. Conrad who denied the allegations, but charges were laid.

Then on November 5, Ms Conrad returned to the RCMP office and recanted her earlier statement saying she'd been coached by someone else. She told police the things she'd reported never happened and that Mr. Conrad was a good husband.

Literally billions of dollars have been pumped into the war on rape over the past three decades, and it's been an utter waste.

The sexual grievance industry insists that when it comes to rape, our college campuses are more dangerous places than the Tadmor Prison in Syria, where the bloodthirsty guards butcher inmates with axes for the fun of it.

Yet they keep spinning their wheels, telling us the rape problem won’t go away. To attack it, they do the same things year after year after year, and nobody seems notice, or care. When it comes to "date rape,” we are at a sort of permanent and institutionalized stalemate, and the sexual grievance industry is just fine with that.

To attack the rape “epidemic,” they push for one loopy reform after the next, supposedly to make it easier for all those hypothetical women out there who must have been raped to come forward.

They change the student disciplinary codes to engorge the definition of sexual assault to snag more “sex abusers.” They even try to flip the burden of proof for rape to force the accused male to prove consent. They enact rules that excuse drunk women from being charged with underage drinking so long as they report they've been raped (so what do you think drunk women are doing?).

No idea is too extreme, too kooky, or too unjust to foist on presumptively innocent young men in the interest of getting these phantom women to "come forward."

They hold rallies where our daughters are urged to "take back the night" even though the night has always been theirs. Our sons are at far greater risk of harm at the hands of deviant sociopaths than our daughters.

They sponsor "clothesline projects" where young women supposedly too scared to report their rapes to the proper authorities are empowered enough to scrawl the names of their alleged attackers on t-shirts along with empowering slogans like "keep your dick to yourself!" They hang ceramic penises on a clothesline as a symbolic assault on "patriarchy."

Paid speakers travel from college to college with slick PowerPoint presentations to shame Freshman men who would never dream of raping a woman into believing masculinity is inherently flawed, and that fantasizing about a hot classmate in Economics 101 is "rape lite."

They plaster posters in dorms saying that "only men can stop rape," even though virtually all men are as innocent as the most innocent woman. And they tacitly, and not so tacitly, encourage women to engage in risky behaviors with even deviant sociopaths.

They pump tuition and tax dollars into chronically underutilized campus rape crisis centers, which Heather MacDonald described as follows: "It’s a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape crisis center. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the alleged campus rape epidemic—but no one calls." See here: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html

And when the inevitable false rape claim occurs, which, truth be told, is far more likely in college than a legitimate rape claim, the campus becomes Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. When the claim is finally revealed as a lie and the witch hunt ends, first they refuse to accept it, then they use it as an occasion to teach students about the dangers of -- you guessed it -- rape.

After all that, they have the chutzpah to insist rape is still rampant, even though it isn't. Despite all the reforms, all the shaming, and all the resources dumped into the toilet, all these supposedly raped women still aren't reporting; young women still find it's easier to pretend they've been slipped a date rape drug than to admit they regret having had sex the night before; the supposed recipients of white male privilege are still decent people; and the sexual grievance industry still insists it needs more and more funding even though it's all a waste.

It's Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.” Nothing changes. And like all the characters Mr. Murray encounters every day (which is really the same day), everybody is just fine with it.

The ones who pay the price for the manufactured rape hysteria are the innocent young men unlucky enough to be falsely accused. They are dragged before a constipated disciplinary hearing board whose mission in life is to rebuke the undeservedly privileged (i.e., white, heterosexual males). In these forums, which resemble the Star Chamber without as much fairness, the presumptively innocent are presumed guilty, addressed in scolding tones, and offered virtually no support while their accusers are treated as if they were Holocaust survivors. And the parents of boys who might be next tolerate this because the mainstream media never told them it goes on.

__________________________

Even if you buy into the lie that rape is rampant, how on earth can you continue to let these goofs lead the war against it? We keep giving them money, and we let them do whatever pops into their heads to our sons, and every year it's the same thing: "Rape is rampant, and hardly any women are reporting their rapes."

If you went to your boss every year and reported what a failure you've been, how long would you last? We all know the definition of insanity, don't we? This is insane.

But, of course, the reason they keep telling us rape is rampant and women aren't reporting is obvious. If they told us the truth, they'd be out of business. They've invented a scare to keep them employed, and they're going to ride it for as long as we don't blame them. When we finally start blaming them, they will start to paint a rosier picture -- "rape is still a problem, but we've cut it in half." Trust me, I'd bet my left testicle on it.

__________________________

By any measure, the "war" on rape isn't working. So what’s the answer? It’s simple. Open the windows and let the truth in.

First, acknowledge something nobody can plausibly deny: "he said/she said" date rape claims place an impossible burden on the people investigating them. Stop pretending otherwise. Even true believer feminists, like prominent feminist legal scholar Aya Gruber, admit that the criminal justice system is not equipped to deal with date rape. See here: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/04/feminist-legal-scholar-to-feminists.html

“He said/she said” disputes over rape need to be summarily dealt with. If the guy has a plausible explanation and there’s no real evidence beyond her claim, it gets dropped immediately. Such claims usually are declared “unfounded” now, but not before the police or the college stage a sadistic passion play, a game of “humiliate-the-male” to appease the man-hating nitwits. Like Christ declared innocent by Pilate – “take him out and flog him before you release him.”

And let’s add one other thing: if there’s evidence beyond his word that she lied, she gets prosecuted. No questions asked.

Second, we need to end the Chicken Little, lock-the-doors-and-hide-the-daughters hysteria because it is encouraging young women to construe bad romps in the hay as rape that deserve to be sanctioned by the college, law enforcement, or both.

This means firing everyone who works in the sexual grievance industry (no loss -- even if there were a rape problem, they are incapable of solving it), shutting down the rape counseling centers, and telling our college administrators to stop paying speakers to come on campus to humiliate almost half of the school’s paying customers. (How on earth do parents of young men put up with that?) Time to try something different, like honesty. See the third point, below.

Third, focusing on so-called “date rape” skirts the real issue and ignores the elephant in the room. Men and women are looking for different things in sex. Men want sex, and women want men. Studies show that women experience far greater after-the-fact regret than men. See here: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2008/07/teach-our-sons-not-to-rape-but-teach.html. Instead of Freshman orientation where young men are shamed for daring to have a penis, we need to start educating our young women that feelings of regret are natural – and that they need to think more carefully about having sex in the first place.

A female law professor in London named Helen Reece – see here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10165/ -- recently wrote a provocative piece positing that "police have succumbed to campaigners’ pressure to treat every allegation of rape with the utmost seriousness." But, she cautioned, "treating all rape complaints seriously means treating all false allegations seriously." She continues: "The nightmare scenario is approaching where every rape complaint is seen as pointing to a prosecution, if possible for rape, and if that’s not possible, for a false allegation. Instead, we should save prosecutions for only the most heinous sexual crimes, and drag the law back out of teenagers’ messy sex lives."

Ms. Reece candidly explains: "I remember the day when one of my best friends burst into tears on the bus on the way to school, before revealing to me and another friend that one of our classmates ‘had tried to rape her’. A box of tissues later, it became clear that what had happened was that he had made a very direct pass at her, which she had responded to up to a point but felt awful about afterwards. We didn’t brand our classmate a rapist, but nor did we think that our friend was a liar. We understood that this was her way of telling us that she felt really rubbish about what had happened, particularly because it meant that she had been ‘unfaithful’ to her long-term boyfriend. It never occurred to any of us to involve teachers or parents, let alone the police."

It’s not the boys who need to change, it’s the young women. In every other sphere of life, women insist that they not be portrayed as helpless pawns waiting to be rescued by the handsome Disney prince. But when it comes to alleged date rape, all of those lofty empowering sentiments go sailing out the window. Anyone who has the temerity to suggest that women who drink are free moral agents capable of making decisions for themselves is a misogynist and a rape apologist. In the bedroom, women are not doers but victims, damsels in more distress than the most passive Disney princess.

We cannot empower our daughters by pretending they are powerless. It’s time we insist our daughters grow up and start taking personal responsibility for their actions.

A former SDSU student who falsely reported a rape in December pleads guilty

Rebecca Diamond, a former SDSU student, pleaded guilty to false reporting and was sentenced with a $500 fine.In December, she reported to the SDSU Police Department that she was sexually assaulted, and then later repealed the report. She appeared in court Jan. 10 and was sentenced with a $500 dollar fine.

Along with the fine, Diamond was sentenced to 90 days in jail with 85 days suspended.

Clyde Calhoon, Brookings County states attorney, said Diamond has served her five days, and the conditions on which the days are suspended are that she must "remain law-abiding" and "contribute 50 hours of community service."

Diamond will have a restitution hearing Feb. 14.

"That's when the court is going to determine what, if anything, she is going to pay for the unnecessary expense to the university," Calhoon said.

In response to Diamond's initial report, the university took action to inform students, faculty members and the community about the potential dangers on campus. These actions included posting flyers around campus, locking the doors to the residence halls, sending out electronic notifications and publishing news releases.

Bob Otterson, executive assistant to the president, said while less than $100 was spent on the flyers, there was a significant cost in other areas.

"I would say time is the biggest cost," Otterson said. "When issues arise that demand our immediate attention, then other things don't get done."

In two cases in the news, loony thoughts are used to criminally punish males.FIRST CASE: A man in Erie, Pennsylvania was convicted of possessing child porn. That is indefensible, of course. What's peculiar about the case is that a federal judge allowed testimony that the man chatted online with the mother of a 4-year-old girl about his desire to breed a "society" of sex slaves. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11054/1127326-100.stm#ixzz1EnTRVW37 He wasn't charged in connection with the on-line chats, and his lawyer argued "that sexually explicit online chats and e-mails the FBI has attributed to [the man] should be excluded as trial evidence because the writings represent free speech. The FBI is alleging [the defendant] in the writings detailed a plan to create a colony of child sex slaves." His lawyer noted: "The government seeks to have the Defendant tried for his alleged thoughts and free expression of speech. As all of this activity is perfectly legal behavior its introduction should be prohibited."

The government claimed the evidence was relevant because the defendant's defense was that a disgruntled ex-girlfriend planted the child porn on his computer, and the "sex colony" writings, though not the subject of the criminal charges, are relevant because they illustrate the man's mindset. "This defendant wants nothing more than to terrorize children," a government lawyer said. http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110127/NEWS02/301279911

SECOND CASE: An eleven year old boy was handcuffed, arrested, and charged with “interfering with staff and students at an educational facility,” a third-degree misdemeanor for drawing pictures that depict violence against a teacher. See here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/79160.html

COMMENT: My concern in the first case is that the loony thought was all that was needed to convict the man on an unrelated charge (I say "unrelated" because it wasn't evidence of child porn). These are tricky issues, but note that in rape cases, we have developed an entire body of law that excludes evidence that is often just as "relevant" -- called the Rape Shield Laws. Those laws sometimes keep out otherwise relevant evidence that would prevent men and boys from being convicted of rape. I do not advocate keeping out relevant evidence just to keep someone from being convicted of a crime, and I realize even suggesting that the "sex colony" evidence might not have been properly admitted in this case -- given the vile conduct alleged -- will not be popular.

But -- and here's the point -- sometimes evidence has only slight relevance, and sometimes the probative value of evidence is so clearly outweighed by its prejudicial effect that it is proper to exclude the evidence. I wonder if it was even possible for this man to get a fair trial on the child porn charges after the loopy "sex colony" evidence was admitted. Even if he didn't put child porn on his computer, it would be pretty much impossible to convince a jury of that after hearing about the "sex colony." My concern in the second case is more fundamental. A boy was branded a criminal for thoughts that cried out for counseling, not handcuffs.

And that seems to be the solution for any aberrant male conduct nowadays: don't bother helping him. Toss him in jail.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Hillary Clinton has turned the alleged sexual assault on Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who said she was attacked in Cairo February 11 in the jubilation following the resignation of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, into an issue of "paramount" importance for women.

As you ponder that, you need to remember that journalists from Egypt, Great Britain, the United States, India, Australia, Greece and other countries, including US newsman Anderson Cooper, have been jumped, beaten, detained and interrogated while reporting on the uprising against Mubarak. For example, in just a one-day span, attacks on reporters included 26 assaults -- almost all of them on men. How many of those men, aside from Mr. Cooper, have shared the spotlight with Ms. Logan?

Female war correspondents have weighed in on the Logan case: "I categorically do not believe that women war correspondents are more vulnerable than war correspondents who are men," said veteran war reporter and author Anna Badkhen. "Female and male correspondents have been raped. . . . . Male colleagues I know have been subjected to torture that involved their sexual organs." Susan Milligan, a political reporter who has covered war in Iraq and the Balkans, said this about war: "It's a risk for everyone. I was at greater risk for being raped, probably. But [compared to her male colleagues] I was at lower risk of being killed."

As for this particular alleged assault, Leila Fadel, the Cairo bureau chief for The Washington Post, explained that the alleged sexual assault against Logan "appears to be an isolated incident." A woman's rights activist in Egypt suggested the alleged attack might have been rooted in xenophobia.

None of that stopped US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's grandstanding by singling out the Logan case to champion women's rights. Clinton, we are told, "has dispatched a team of diplomats to help in the hunt for Egyptian protesters who sexually assaulted CBS journalist Lara Logan. She is taking a personal interest in the Logan case and has turned up the heat on Egyptian authorities searching for the attackers. The Secretary of State has made violence against women a top priority since she took office, and the latest incident is said to be of ‘paramount’ importance to her." http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/2011/02/20/what-happened-to-lara-logan-update-hilary-clinton-gets-involved/

And all of the over-the-top attention -- from the call from President Obama to Clinton's grandstanding -- is as wrong as can be for women. The over-the-top coverage says that women, by virtue of their gender, should be immune from the same dangers men are expected to face in silence.

It's the same mentality that tells our college-aged daughters they must "Take Back the Night," even though it's always been theirs. Our sons have always been at far greater risk of physical assault than our daughters, and even though everyone knows it, everybody pretends it isn't so.

Logan is an unlikely feminist pin-up girl. She has a history of calling attention to her own considerable sexuality. In the Afghanistan war, she was accused of showing off her body in a deliberate attempt to call attention to herself -- not difficult in a cauldron where thousands of hot-blooded young males had been away from wives and girlfriends for months.

One time, Logan was trying to obtain a favor from a US officer. She did this with her "boobs" half out, and then by bending over a computer in her low-cut top. It backfired on her: the officer marched out of the room, red-faced. "Ma’am, that is not the way we do business here," he said. One source said: “She did the same with a few British officers and it didn’t go down well with them either. Lara is a gorgeous-looking woman, there is no denying that.But a military base in a war zone is not a place for being flirtatious. She was very keen to get exclusives but had a funny way of going about trying to get them. One guy told her, 'I feel sorry for your husband’ after she tried the bending over his computer trick in front of him. To be honest it became an embarrassment.”

Nevertheless, America has a new patron saint of atrocities against women. Even though whatever happened to this particular women -- if anything -- wasn't typical, and wasn't as bad as what happens to male reporters more frequently.

When you put women on a pedestal for your own political aggrandizement, Ms. Clinton, you are just insuring that they can't be treated equally.

Texas House member, Republican Will Hartnett, plans to help push a proposal to reform eyewitness identification procedures used in criminal investigations that too often send innocent men to prison for crimes they did not commit. The bill would require police departments "to have a policy on lineups (most don't) and lets defense counsel tell juries if the rules weren't followed." See here.

Efforts at reform in Texas to attack the problem of wrongful convictions are pushed by the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions, passed in 2009 to study the prevention of wrongful convictions across the state. The Act is named after the first man posthumously pardoned by the Governor of Texas for a rape he did not commit.

The details of Mr. Cole's conviction are appalling. This is a shortened version of the summary found at the Innocence Project's Web site: In 1985, a young woman reported she'd been raped and described the perpetrator to police as a young African-American man wearing a yellow shirt and sandals, but didn’t give many other details. She said the perpetrator had smoked cigarettes throughout the attack.

Timothy Cole was a 26-year-old Army veteran studying business at Texas Tech in 1985. On the night of the incident, Mr. Cole had studied at home, where his brother was hosting a card game. Two weeks later, Mr. Cole went to a pizza restaurant near the Texas Tech campus, a few blocks from the scene of the attack where he spoke with a female detective outside of the restaurant. That conversation made him a suspect. A detective went to Mr. Cole’s house to take a Polaroid photo of him. Detectives then showed the accuser a photo lineup including six photographs. Mr. Cole’s was the only color photo and the only Polaroid; the other five were black-and-white photos. Mr. Cole was looking at the camera in his photo while the subjects in the five mug shots were facing to the side. According to police, the accuser was immediately sure that Cole was her attacker, saying: “That’s him.”

The next day, police conducted an in-person lineup with Cole and four prisoners. The accuser again identified him. Victims from similar recent rapes also viewed the lineup and did not identify him as the attacker. At the trial, Mr. Cole's brother and friends testified that Mr. Cole had been at the apartment at the time of the attack. Mr. Cole also presented evidence that he had severe asthma and did not smoke cigarettes. Mr. Cole was convicted.

In 1995, a Texas prisoner named Jerry Wayne Johnson wrote to police and prosecutors in Lubbock County that he had committed the rape for which Cole had been convicted. Johnson’s letters were not acknowledged. Mr. Cole died in prison of an asthma-induced heart attack in 1999. He was just 38. He died without ever learning that another man was attempting to confess to the crime.

_________________________

We applaud GOP legislator Will Hartnett for pushing for reform as a Republican. He recently spoke about the difficulties in pushing such legislation as a Republican:

"Republican candidates often campaign on being tough on crime. Anything that could be perceived as softening law enforcement with regard to criminals can be subject to scrutiny in Republican circles. But my job in Austin is to do the best thing for justice, not necessarily what is politically best. . . . .

"I'm trying to think of the old saying ... 'The conviction of an innocent person is a crime unto itself.' It's an indictment of our justice system. Our country was founded on protection of liberty and individual rights. The justice system needs to bend over backward to protect innocent people. The fact that we've seen so many people imprisoned for long periods of time, when they were innocent, indicates we've got a problem that needs to be fixed . . . .

"We have a very solid Republican majority in the House, and Republicans tend to be very cautious in changing law-enforcement procedures, and so having my involvement attached to that bill will give them a lot of comfort that it is, in fact, good legislation that needs to be passed."

Wednesday morning began like an ordinary day for the Rusk Police Department. But that all changed when a sexual assault case lead to a foot chase of a suspected felon, which turned into a case of mistaken identity, a car chase and several arrests.

“It was a circus,” said Rusk Police Joe Evans. “It was a case of a full moon for the criminals, and all the stars aligned for us.”

The Rusk P.D. received a report of a sexual assault occurring at the Timbercreek Apartments on U.S. Highway 84. As the case developed, several witnesses came forward to give information that conflicted with what the police had been told.

“It was apparent that a false report had been made to the Rusk Police department by the victim,” said Chief Evans. The woman recanted her first report and gave a statement to Officer Michael Duncan that she had in fact lied to officers because she was mad at her boyfriend. The other statements from witnesses verified her story of lying to the officers investigating the case.

“Her actions caused the Rusk Police Department, ETMC staff and Memorial Medical Center in Lufkin to spend hours attempting to gather evidence of a sexual assault that had not occurred. Janice Tropp of Rusk was charged with making a false report to a police officer,” he said.

Chief Evans suggested to his officers that they take a break on the sexual assault case paperwork and serve a felony warrant for theft on Trevor Tucker in Rusk.

When they knocked on the door, a woman blocked the entrance and told officers she would not allow them into her home.

“We explained to her that a felony warrant allows us to enter a house. That’s when we noticed a man running out the back door of the home, located on U.S. Highway 84.”

He ran into the woods between U.S. Highways 84 and 69. Chief Evans got a glimpse of the man, who was wearing a red shirt and red pants.

For the next two hours, officers from the Cherokee County Sheriffs Department and the Rusk P.D. combed the area.

In an unexpected twist, Tucker called Detective Stephen Hughes and said he wanted to turn himself in, but he was going to have a friend pick him up.

Police officers drove to a Rusk convenience store, which was the agreed-upon meeting site.

At approximately 4:45 p.m. a vehicle drove slowly past the convenience store, and officers could see that the passenger was wearing a red shirt. When the vehicle didn’t turn into the convenience store, officers turned on their red lights for a traffic stop. However, the vehicle sped away.

A short distance later, the vehicle stopped, and the man in the red shirt jumped out of the vehicle and ran from officers.

RPD officer Daniel Moore began a foot chase which meandered through the properties of a day care center and church.

The suspect was captured by Deputy Sheriff David Heredia and off duty Deputy Sheriff Matt Poole, who approached from the opposite direction. Officers Moore and Branham then handcuffed the suspect, who possessed a quantity of cocaine, marijuana and a handgun.

When officers asked for the suspect’s identification, they realized he was not the original suspect wearing a red shirt – Trevor Tucker.

The fugitive who ran through a school zone and church property was Devante Lee Johnson.

He was charged with possession of a controlled substance in a drug free zone, possession of marijuana in a drug free zone, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in a weapons free zone and evading arrest or detention.

Mr. Johnson also had warrants for endangering a child (two counts), warrants for evading arrest and a warrant from the Texas Youth Commission on an old case.

The driver of the vehicle who attempted to evade the officers, Marcus Dewayne Anderson Jr., was charged with three traffic offenses. Another passenger, Terral Deshon Carter, was charged with disorderly conduct.

A short time after the chase the original suspect, Mr. Tucker, surrendered.

He is charged with felony theft and evading arrest or detention.Chief Evans expressed appreciation to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department for assisting Rusk officers.

“I also would like to thank Wells Chief Jeff Clopp for bringing his tracking dog to assist. This type of cooperation really makes the job rewarding,” he said.

A WOMAN who falsely claimed she was raped by two teenagers who forced their way into her house has been jailed for 15 months.Joanne Parker, 30, from Upton Park, reported the men to police after all three had consensual sex at the home she shared with her partner on May 5, 2009, a court heard.

One suspect, then aged 17 and now 19, was arrested and interviewed as a result of Parker’s lies. But the case against him was dropped.

His phone had text messages from Parker, video footage from the night and photos of Parker’s breasts and vagina she had sent to him.

Among messages was one sent on May 1 from Parker offering to instigate sex with Mr Smith and his friend.

Parker later told police she lied to cover up her actions in the fear her partner would find out.

Parker, of Boleyn Road, was jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court after she admitted perverting the course of justice.

One message sent from Parker to Mr Smith minutes before the alleged rape were “clearly inviting him to the property and offering to wear sexy clothing”.

The pair were in contact via text since at least April 30.

The court heard Parker had an “extremely low IQ”, which led to learning difficulties and short-term memory loss, and she was sexually abused as a child.

Friday, February 18, 2011

"I am a victim still to this day. I am still continually being raped by the public, the media, the government especially." --Karen Cunagin Sypher

Calling her offense "brazen," U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III sentenced Karen Cunagin Sypher today to seven years and three months in prison for trying to extort cash, cars and other payments from University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino in exchange for her silence that he supposedly raped her twice in 2003.

"It was driven apparently by sheer greed," the judge said.

Case HistoryHere is what happened. In mid-April 2009, Sypher began calling news organizations with supposed details of her now well-known story -- that she was raped at Porcini restaurant in 2003 and aborted a baby that resulted from that encounter. Pitino then released a statement on what he called a criminal scheme. Pitino acknowledged he had sex once with Sypher, at the Porcini restaurant, but said it was consensual. Six days later, the FBI charged Sypher with extortion.

Only later, in July 2009, did Sypher go to police and report the alleged attack -- only after she was charged with extortion, and six years after she says the rapes occurred. In the police interview, a police officer asked Sypher, "the question was why 6 years later?" She seemed indignant that he would even ask the question. She answered, "they kept throwing me crumbs to keep me happy."

When the tape of that police interview was made public, an angry Pitino had enough. He called a press conference.

Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel later ruled that her allegations were without merit.

For a year, Sypher maintained she was telling the truth and her extortion trial finally started in July of last year. After eight days of testimony, it took the jury just six hours to find her guilty.

Today's Sentence

Today's sentence was the shortest possible sentence under federal sentencing guidelines. The Judge also ordered Sypher, 50, a former trade-show model and saleswoman, to serve two years of supervised release after she is let out of prison, during which she must have no contact with Pitino or other witnesses.

No Remorse

Sypher said last month, she still feels like she did nothing wrong.

"I am a victim still to this day," she said. "I am still continually being raped by the public, the media, the government especially."

FRS COMMENT:As you read the news story below -- which is typical of the coverage of false rape claims -- notice how the emphasis is entirely on women. First, hypothetical women who are said to be hurt by false claims. Second, the poor false accuser whose life has been harmed by her life. There is no mention if the man she accused was arrested and charged. Nor is there a mention of hypothetical victims of the crime at issue -- which are almost always men and boys.

SHERIFF CRITICAL OF TEEN IN FALSE RAPE CLAIM

A Sheriff has criticised a teenager who falsely accused a man of rape for undermining measures designed to protect victims of sexual abuse.

Louise Creighton was sentenced to community service at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday after she admitted making a false allegation against a man with whom she had slept.

The 18-year-old was at university “trying to find herself” and made the claim because she felt guilty for sleeping with the man because she had a girlfriend, the court heard.

Sheriff Annella Cowan said: “This kind of behaviour undermines the whole system which attempts to protect women who are genuine victims.

“The amount of time and energy that was spent investigating a completely false allegation was quite considerable.”

Fiscal depute Karen Dow said “numerous” police officers, including a forensic unit, were involved in the investigation, which “wasted” a total of 70 man-hours.

Creighton had met the man at a music festival and invited him to a party at her flat in the city’s Mealmarket Exchange student accommodation when he went to Aberdeen on October 1 last year, the court heard.

The pair slept together but she began to cry immediately afterwards, told him to leave and told friends she had been raped, Miss Dow said.

Police launched an investigation and it was two days later, while she was being interviewed, that Creighton confessed she had lied.

She told officers that she had a girlfriend and “did not feel comfortable” that she had slept with the man.

Defence agent Mike Allan said Creighton had been “staying in the country” at St Fergus before going to Aberdeen to study photography at university.

“She was really trying to find herself and find out exactly where she was and her identity as far as sex was concerned,” he said.

“She knew immediately she made the allegation that it was a very, very serious mistake.”

He said the incident had “ruined her life so far” and Creighton, listed in court papers as living at 505 Mealmarket Exchange, had left the university course without graduating.

The sheriff said: “The allegation you made was extremely serious.”

She sentenced Creighton to 180 hours of community service as a direct alternative to jail.

FRS COMMENT:As you read the news story below -- which is typical of the coverage of false rape claims -- notice how the emphasis is entirely on women. First, hypothetical women who are said to be hurt by false claims. Second, the poor false accuser whose life has been harmed by her life. There is no mention if the man she accused was arrested and charged. Nor is there a mention of hypothetical victims of the crime at issue -- which are almost always men and boys.

A Toronto police officer is in hot water for comments he made about rape in a school. His choice of wording was awful, but it seems he intended to say that there is correlation between rape and the sexual attractiveness of the victim. As discussed below, his comments were widely denounced.The rape milieu is so terribly politicized, and so terribly encrusted with layer upon layer of half-truths and outright lies, that we have reached a point where it is socially verboten to tell our daughters certain things they should know that could save them from calamity.

If our daughters digest the information typically disseminated by sexual assault counselors, they would believe that rape is nothing more than a crime of violence and that a rapist's sexual attraction has nothing whatsoever to do with it. They would logically conclude from this that women who are senior citizens, and whose beauty, by societal standards, has faded, should be targets of rape just as much as the hottest girl on campus.

In fact, "NCVS data reveal that rape victims tend to be young and that rapists prefer younger, presumably more attractive victims.” The data indicates that “younger offenders may be seeking sexual gratification . . ..” L. Siegel, Criminology at 294 (2008). Moreover: ". . . the correlation between age distribution of rape victims and the age of peak female sexual attractiveness is powerful evidence" of a sexual motivation for rape. R. Thornhill, C. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion at 139. See also 180-183 (2001). That examination of rape, written by a biologist and an antropologist, debunk the politiczed social science theory that "rape is a crime of violence but not of sex."

Nevertheless, the conventions of our modern age tell us it is improper to suggest to our daughters that being sexually attractive, and that efforts to make themselves sexually attractive, could increase their risk of being raped. These efforts are decried as "victim blaming."

Let's get a few things straight:

●No woman "asks" to be raped (because if she "asked" to be raped, it would be consensual sex).●A rapist is never excused of responsibility for his crime merely by virtue of the way a woman looks or dresses.●Being sexually attractive is not "bad" behavior, but all other things being equal, the more sexually attractive a woman is, the greater her chances of being raped.

Our daughters need to know the truth about the correlation between rape and sexual attraction. To suggest otherwise is to elevate political ideology over our daughters' safety.

Along these lines, a Toronto Police Officer has been forced to apologize, and has been disciplined, after he told a school forum that women’s attire can put them at risk of being attacked. "The policeman, who reportedly prefaced his comment by saying 'I’ve been told I shouldn’t say this,' instructed the audience that women should avoid 'dressing like sluts' if they wanted to be safe from sexual assault."

That, of course, was an awful choice of words, so poor, in fact, that it wasn't even accurate. A "slut" may or may not be sexually attractive, and the choice of wording suggests that efforts to be sexually attractive are morally wrong.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his intent was to tell the students what we said above: that there is a correlation between rape and sexual attractiveness. He should have said just that. He could have added that this does not mean that rape is confined only to sexually attractive victims; but it does mean that sexually attractive young women are at greater risk of being raped.

But no matter how the police officer might have worded it, I suspect his message would have been met with angry denunciations. The truth about rape is not empowering. It can't be fitted into a feminist narrative. Women at most risk of being raped are young and sexually attractive. No, it's not fair. It's not politically correct. But it's true. And our daughters need to hear it.

A Toronto police officer is in hot water for comments he made about rape in a school. His choice of wording was awful, but it seems he intended to say that there is correlation between rape and the sexual attractiveness of the victim. As discussed below, his comments were widely denounced.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

America has a new patron saint of atrocities against women. She's Lara Logan, the CBS reporter allegedly attacked in Cairo last Friday in the jubilation following the resignation of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.President Obama personally called Logan yesterday to see how she was doing.

Ms. Logan isn't just a reporter any more. She is a symbol of the oppression of an entire gender. She is Lorena Bobbitt, Jessica Lynch, and Crystal Gail Mangum, with a camera crew.

And it's all another big step back for women. The over-the-top coverage says that women, by virtue of their gender, should be immune from the risks men are expected to face without whining. It's the same mentality that tells our college-aged daughters they must "Take Back the Night," even though it's always been theirs. Our sons have always been at far greater risk of physical assault, and everyone knows it, it's just politically correct to pretend otherwise.

We really know nothing about what happened to Ms. Logan, except for what CBS told us in a released statement:

"On Friday, Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a '60 Minutes' story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy. In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers."

Thank goodness for that group of women! (Oh, um, and for the 20 soldiers, too.) No other witnesses have come forward, and even the nature of the alleged attack has not been made public.

Yet, somehow, we know the attack was "brutal." Read what a Washington Post reporter wrote, just don't let your head explode: "Her sexual assault was clearly a brutal event, although the exact nature of it remains unclear."

How something can be "clearly" brutal when we don't even know what happened tells us more about the Washington Post than we might care to know.

In another report, a journalist described the attack against Logan as "brutal," and also noted that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was "brutally beheaded" in 2002.

Excuse me, but to use the same word to describe the vague, unsubstantiated alleged sexual assault against Ms. Logan as is used to describe one of the most gruesome, inhumane public executions on record is a barometer of how overblown the Logan incident has become.

The fact is, attacks on reporters -- mostly male but some female, too -- are not unusual. When they occur, trumpets rarely blare and headlines don't scream.

Anderson Cooper was attacked in Egypt while he was reporting on the turmoil in Tahrir Square. Cooper's cameras kept rolling during the melee. A female member of his crew was protected against the crush of humanity.

A BBC journalist and his cameraman were deliberately attacked -- cut, bruised, nose bloodied -- and his cameraman beaten in Yemen by government supporters while they were reporting on violent protests spilling over from the Mubarak chaos.

ABC News reporter Miguel Marquez was attacked while reporting from Pearl Square in Manama, Bahrain. Marquez was covering a security crackdown on anti-government protesters who had gathered in the square.

The fact of the matter is that journalists from Egypt, Great Britain, the United States, India, Australia, Greece and other countries have been jumped, beaten, detained and interrogated while reporting on the uprising against Mubarak. Even Al-Jazeera's Cairo office was stormed by thugs who burned the facility. "In a one-day span, attacks on reporters included 30 detentions, 26 assaults and eight instances of equipment seized, and plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly entered at least two hotels where international journalists were staying to confiscate media equipment . . . ."

Nevertheless, some will say, female reporters are subject to worse atrocities than their male counterparts by virtue of their gender.

Go tell that to Daniel Pearl's widow. It's simply not so.

Longtime war correspondent and author Anna Badkhen, who has covered wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and Kashmir for a number of media outlets including The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, FRONTLINE, and Salon, said this:

"I categorically do not believe that women war correspondents are more vulnerable than war correspondents who are men." She continued: "Female and male correspondents have been killed, maimed, wounded in conflict zones. Female and male correspondents have been raped. . . . . Male colleagues I know have been subjected to torture that involved their sexual organs. The nature of torture, the origin of torture, is to degrade, to render the tortured helpless. . . . . As a rule, war does not discriminate."

Susan Milligan, a political reporter who has covered war in Iraq and the Balkans, said this about war: "It's a risk for everyone. I was at greater risk for being raped, probably. But [compared to her male colleagues] I was at lower risk of being killed."

Did you get that? Women reporters are at lower risk of being killed, according to a woman who should know, yet, a headline screams: "Logan Attack Highlights Women's Plight."

Leila Fadel, the Cairo bureau chief for The Washington Post, explained that the alleged sexual assault against Logan "appears to be an isolated incident." A woman's rights activist in Egypt suggested the alleged attack might have been rooted in xenophobia.

None of that matters. Ms. Logan has been firmly implanted on the pedestal, and it's my guess that any attempt to dislodge her will be decried as "misogyny!" After all, any assertion that women don't have it as bad as the cackling hens who write features articles for our major dailies claim they do must be rooted in "misogyny!" -- a word so terribly misused that it has lost its true meaning.

For the sake of women reporters, and for the sake of fairness, it's time to come down off that pedestal, Lara, and speak out against war atrocities that ALL war correspondents face.